Dellavedova, the NBA and Australia's Olympic hopes: the glory days are coming
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Version 0 of 1. There’s a revolution underway in Australian men’s basketball. You might be forgiven if you missed it – until now. Unless you have been living under a rock – or assiduously avoid the sports pages – you likely know Matthew Dellavedova from Maryborough, Victoria is the most unlikely superstar of the current NBA finals. Known by his nickname “Delly”, or by his other nickname, “Outback Jesus” – courtesy of his miraculous abilities on court combined with his Carpenter of Nazareth hair and beard combination – this Australian with a god-awful ugly shot is the reason the Cleveland Cavaliers are still in with a chance to win the series. Like most great players, Dellavedova has his critics, but he deserves the adulation coming his way. He’s not flashy or stylish or selfish. He’s relentless on offence and defence. By NBA standards, he’s a short 6’4”, gawky and not a natural athlete, but he works incredibly hard. Delly’s teammate LeBron James – arguably the best player on the planet today – described him thus: “It’s like he’s made of steel or something ... If there’s a ball on the ground, he’s the first guy to the ground ... He gives us everything until the tank is empty. He’s huge for us. I’m never going anywhere without Delly again.” The Australian public is belatedly coming to the realisation that we’ve got something special in Dellavedova – just as we did with Dante Exum a few months ago and with Patty Mills and Aron Baynes in last year’s NBA finals. But ask most Australians about basketball and they’ll tell you it’s gone downhill since the NBL (Australia’s National Basketball League) “glory days” of the 1990s, back before pay TV and digital broadcasting brought every NBA and NCAA (the US National Collegiate Athletic Association) game into Australian lounge rooms. The NBL was the right product for the times, but like the Palm Pilot and VHS, the old model just can’t compete in the new marketplace. The glory days are never coming back, and unless it adapts, the NBL will struggle to survive. Meanwhile, Australia’s male basketball players are storming their way into the best basketball competitions in the world, earning respect and winning titles. Today there are a record seven Australian players in the NBA. Within the next two years that number could rise to 10. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal recently opined, “Why every NBA team needs an Australian.” This is fantastic for Australian basketball. Australia has never won an Olympic medal in men’s basketball. Yet the Boomers, currently ranked 11th in the world, have never had a better prospect of standing on an Olympic podium. Nations that win Olympic medals in men’s basketball have the majority of their players playing the majority of their minutes in the NBA. The best way to develop the best Australian men’s national team is to have as many of our players as possible facing the best competition every day. That competition is in the NBA, and to a lesser extent in the NCAA and in Europe. We didn’t used to think this way. As recently as the Sydney 2000 Olympics, our basketball squad was 11 players from the NBL and our one NBA player, Luc Longley. Related: 'Dellavedova Dome': Australian town to honour Cavaliers basketball player When the Boomers take the court in Rio in 2016 it is possible that not one of them will be a current NBL player. In fact, several of them – like Delly and Exum – have never even played a game in the NBL. Leveraging the best competitions in the world to develop our national team players is a deliberate strategy supported by Basketball Australia and the Boomer’s head coach Andrej Lemanis. But Lemanis isn’t just sending his players out of the country and hoping they get better. He’s also defining and cultivating an “Australian style of play”: relentless, tough on defence, focused on the fundamentals, and team-centred. Or put another way, everything that Matthew Dellavedova is currently doing. Understandably, there are those that mourn the loss of the NBL as the place to watch the best Australian talent. Some even argue that we should try to keep our best players in Australia, as if there is some kind of protectionist policy we can put in place. Like most forms of protectionism, it would do more harm than good. There is no evidence that the decline of the NBL has had much effect on Australians’ interest in the sport. Basketball is one of the strongest growing sports for children’s participation in the nation. It is the second most popular team sport in terms of participation. Some 400 Australians play basketball in the NCAA every year. Australians are amongst the highest subscribers per capita in the world to the NBA League Pass, watching NBA games live and on demand. Australia is one of the top four shipping destinations on earth for the NBA.com store. Our magnificent women’s team, the Opals, are ranked second in the world and are one of Australia’s most successful Olympic teams. The men’s wheelchair team, the Rollers, are ranked first and the women’s team, the Gliders, are ranked sixth. In short, Australians love watching basketball and we are damn good at playing it. Delly, Mills, Exum and their fellow Aussies wear their national pride on their sleeves – sometimes literally. The Boomers abroad are marvellous ambassadors for our nation and terrific role models for young Australian basketball players. They are showing that the Australian style of play is among the best in the world. Indeed, for Australian men’s basketball, the glory days are ahead of us, and coming soon. |